It seems the big change would be that satellites would be cheap. Spewing some things that seem to follow from that as a stream of thinking aloud...

That changes the economics of lots of things. Iridium style phone networks with worldwide coverage would cost less than base station based networks.

Satellites could be almost disposable. Drones could linger in orbit waiting to be deployed, land and be returned to orbit. Having a fleet that could respond to anywhere on the globe in 10-20 minutes would be viable for most nation states or multinational companies.

But for services that can be provided from satellites - observation, communication, armed response - nation state and even continental boundaries cease to be relevant. If you can provide it in one country you can provide it anywhere on the planet for similar cost.

Earth observation would be much cheaper too - sea level change would be beyond dispute, there would be accurate, hourly updated sea ice maps.

The sky would look obviously different at night (and even a little during the day). "Iridium flashes" would be the normal expectation of looking at the sky, not relatively rare occurrence. Ground based astronomy would be serious affected; on the other hand even the wealthier amateurs would be able to afford/rent satellite telescopes for personal projects.

ICBMs would become redundant. There would be so many objects re-entering the atmosphere that every major metropolitan area would have anti-ballistic object defences that were tested and used on regular basis.

Microgravity production could be economic - but I've still to sea any plausible ideas for what you can do with that that changes things.

I dunno if there's really *that* much demand from people wanting to put stuff into orbit, frankly. Satellites are very, very expensive things to build, and as a result, not many people are doing so.

Such an aircraft would probably have more of a future as a high-speed personnel transport or spy-plane, but your posited description is much too vague. Are we talking something with a turnaround measured in hours, days, weeks, months ? Is it more complex than a 747, or less ? What kind of service intervals does it have, and what's it's maximum lifespan ?

ICBMs would become redundant. There would be so many objects re-entering the atmosphere that every major metropolitan area would have anti-ballistic object defences that were tested and used on regular basis.

I don't follow you on this one. Cheap access to space doesn't make that problem easier to solve, and the severity of a satellite crashing is around zero percent of the threat of an ICBM ruining your day.

ICBMs would become redundant. There would be so many objects re-entering the atmosphere that every major metropolitan area would have anti-ballistic object defences that were tested and used on regular basis.

I don't follow you on this one. Cheap access to space doesn't make that problem easier to solve, and the severity of a satellite crashing is around zero percent of the threat of an ICBM ruining your day.

My thinking is once you get the satellite density I think you'd get quite quickly if they cost $100,000 to launch. Then there would be potentially lethal pieces of space debris falling to earth daily - rather than the current once every couple of years. Partly because there will be more space devices and partly because each device can be less reliable while still being economically viable - that leads to an exponential increase.

If that starts happening then interceptor systems (presumably tracking radars and missiles - which might even be orbit based) are going to start being deployed to protect population centres - even when the risk is fairly small (see Israel and the Iron Dome system).

Sizing a system like that so it can also disrupt an ICBM isn't much of an upgrade - so I'd expect it to be done. Anything capable of fragmenting debris at the upper end of the proposed payload range might do the job out the box anyway.

So I think there is a plausible chain of reasoning.

I'm guessing the OP's question it literature related. A Sci-Fi what if. I chuck that in because it's got potentially interesting plot implications - it allows a survivable WWIII scenario to play out.

My thinking is that we don't have Anti-Ballistic Systems in every city when the radius of destruction is measured in tens of miles with guided weapons rather than a few feet with unguided space junk. I'll take 10,000 pieces of space junk landing in my city over a single warhead in my state.

It's going to be really hard to get the threat of falling satellites to move the needle on How Badly Do We Need Anti-Ballistic Systems Meter. Satellites have a tough time reaching the ground in the first place. Things in orbit tend to stay there. When they don't, they tend to disintegrate. (A $100,000 launch is putting 200 lbs into space anyway in this scenario.) When they fail at that, they aren't likely to hit anything except water or dirt. It would make a lot more sense to just design them for re-entry safety than put missiles around every metro area. It would also be cheaper than fending off the space-debris-chasing lawyers.

Perhaps the more worrisome problem with abundant launches is that the orbits we want to use get more and more cluttered with space debris threatening working satellites.

given the 5-8 metric ton payload proposed, wouldn't it be vastly more simple and economical to design a standardized re-entry facilitator (basically, a streamer/parachute type system) that could be remotely deployed on any object trending towards de-orbit? Anything could be timed to "aim" the de-orbting object into the pacific?

given the 5-8 metric ton payload proposed, wouldn't it be vastly more simple and economical to design a standardized re-entry facilitator (basically, a streamer/parachute type system) that could be remotely deployed on any object trending towards de-orbit? Anything could be timed to "aim" the de-orbting object into the pacific?

Assuming the unit cost of the launch gear is 747 comparable as proposed then the ability to control what gets launched disappears. At those costs a company the size of a regional freight transport airline can afford to buy/lease a launcher. Someone like "Trans Air Congo" could reasonably aspire to doing launches.

There will be low cost junk, weighing up to 8 tonnes, launched by low cost operators for entrepreneurial clients who have long since gone bust taking the encryption keys for the control connection with them.

I'd be anticipating Skylab sized, uncontrolled, de-orbit events to happening every few weeks.

LEO isn't long term stable - there is still atmospheric drag and stuff falls out those orbits in a few decades at lower end of what is called LEO (80-300km - which is where the cheapest stuff will be put since the cost is lowest).

There will be low cost junk, weighing up to 8 tonnes, launched by low cost operators for entrepreneurial clients who have long since gone bust taking the encryption keys for the control connection with them.

Consider: we can and do inspect the majority of trucking and shipping containers. I don't think it would be all that difficult to ensure cargo/payloads meet a minimum standard prior to launch. Even if something ends up in LEO without my proposed de-orbit facilitator, given the low cost of launch it would be easy enough to send up a new object that could attach to and control the de-orbit of the rogue object.

This thread came from one of the panels on space-foo that occurred at Norwescon over the weekend. One of the panelists commented that he was under NDA, but he wouldn't be surprised if a spaceplane with the stats above was available in a decade.

This thread came from one of the panels on space-foo that occurred at Norwescon over the weekend. One of the panelists commented that he was under NDA, but he wouldn't be surprised if a spaceplane with the stats above was available in a decade.

Falcon Heavy (the cheapest cost to LEO I can find via google) claim $2200/kg, or roughly twice the cost of the theoretical space plane in the thread title. It seems a bit optimistic to me to think you could halve that cost while simulataneously introducing a reusable space plane. Keeping in mind that SpaceX is already making strides with grasshopper...I'm a bit skeptical that someone could surpass them (at reduced cost, no less) via a presumably manned spaceplane system...at least not within a decade.

I will, however, make allowance for an unmanned space plane...that may make sense.

There will be low cost junk, weighing up to 8 tonnes, launched by low cost operators for entrepreneurial clients who have long since gone bust taking the encryption keys for the control connection with them.

Cubesats or certainly no larger than something like an Astra.

Quote:

I'd be anticipating Skylab sized, uncontrolled, de-orbit events to happening every few weeks.

Why? Just because supertankers or ULCCs exist, doesn't mean idiots are slamming them into quays every few weeks. The moment you hold executives criminally responsible for this kind of stuff is the moment it doesn't happen. Current law would do that. Whether's it's Transocean, Halliburton and BP shitting all over the Gulf of Mexico, or Virgin Galactic dropping a failed sat on your head, there's responsibility and accountability behind it.

Additionally, something the sheer size and mass of Skylab would by no means be cheap to orbit, regardless of how it is put there. It's not size really, it's mass and density.

The moment you hold executives criminally responsible for this kind of stuff is the moment it doesn't happen. Current law would do that. Whether's it's Transocean, Halliburton and BP shitting all over the Gulf of Mexico

Well, some might argue that current laws need to be fixed... maybe there's a case where a company takes advantage of some loophole whereby their object isn't "technically" considered a "satellite," so they're exempt from paying for the damages.

There will be low cost junk, weighing up to 8 tonnes, launched by low cost operators for entrepreneurial clients who have long since gone bust taking the encryption keys for the control connection with them.

Cubesats or certainly no larger than something like an Astra.

Quote:

I'd be anticipating Skylab sized, uncontrolled, de-orbit events to happening every few weeks.

Why? Just because supertankers or ULCCs exist, doesn't mean idiots are slamming them into quays every few weeks. The moment you hold executives criminally responsible for this kind of stuff is the moment it doesn't happen. Current law would do that. Whether's it's Transocean, Halliburton and BP shitting all over the Gulf of Mexico, or Virgin Galactic dropping a failed sat on your head, there's responsibility and accountability behind it.

Additionally, something the sheer size and mass of Skylab would by no means be cheap to orbit, regardless of how it is put there. It's not size really, it's mass and density.

Super tankers cost a lot more than a 747. And who is accountable is Somali pirates ram a cruise ship with one for fun?

747 ball park priced planes that are now near end of life are being used for trans-atlantic drug runs. 20-30 years after a space plane like this hits the market and the early air frames are close to EoL then launchers and launches are going to be available to anyone.

The Rwandan military, drug cartels, T-mobile, tele-evangelists, the next bin Laden - it makes space access affordable to those groups.

It makes space access affordable to the sort of groups that can currently own or charter a 747. Heck - Top Gear have chartered a 747 for a 5 minute segment where they blew cars across the runway with the engines. There will be a Reliant Robin in LEO if Clarkson hasn't retired yet 20 years from now.

Super tankers cost a lot more than a 747. And who is accountable is Somali pirates ram a cruise ship with one for fun?

747 ball park priced planes that are now near end of life are being used for trans-atlantic drug runs. 20-30 years after a space plane like this hits the market and the early air frames are close to EoL then launchers and launches are going to be available to anyone.

You seem to think that a "spaceplane" operates at anywhere near the ubiquity of an airplane. They don't. There are only so many places and times where you can launch a LEO-capable vehicle. A "spaceplane" is mostly about re-entry, not launch. Regardless of whether or not you can fly it back down to earth, you still have the logistics and problems of launch. It takes a very concerted and easily spotted effort to do so.

People aren't going to be throwing large rocks up just to hope they land somewhere politically convenient.

LOL, indeed. You'd no longer need to build your satellites to 99.999% reliability or whatnot, you could probably settle for 99% or even 95% or even 80%, and hell, if it didn't work, it would be so affordable to send up another... vs. the current approach of over-engineering the crap out of everything because launch costs are so expensive.

Super tankers cost a lot more than a 747. And who is accountable is Somali pirates ram a cruise ship with one for fun?

747 ball park priced planes that are now near end of life are being used for trans-atlantic drug runs. 20-30 years after a space plane like this hits the market and the early air frames are close to EoL then launchers and launches are going to be available to anyone.

You seem to think that a "spaceplane" operates at anywhere near the ubiquity of an airplane. They don't. There are only so many places and times where you can launch a LEO-capable vehicle. A "spaceplane" is mostly about re-entry, not launch. Regardless of whether or not you can fly it back down to earth, you still have the logistics and problems of launch. It takes a very concerted and easily spotted effort to do so.

People aren't going to be throwing large rocks up just to hope they land somewhere politically convenient.

That's the assumption I don't agree with. Assuming the bit about unit price similar to a 747 then cost per lb to orbit can't plausibly include "provided you use our specific enormously expensive launch and landing services at this particular site".

The pricing seems to imply operating out of any 4 miles of concrete military airbase, which chimes with highly reusable.

And that's before the conceptual copies start coming from the usual not under western control nations.

I think anything that can show how to go about meeting those specs for a unit cost less than $300x10e6 means super power near monopoly on control of access to space is gone.

Why a spaceplane? You're really asking how low launch costs would change things...that doesn't depend on how those low launch costs are achieved, and space planes are one of the least likely options. Hauling an aircraft into orbit and back is not a viable way of reducing costs to orbit.

Blue Apple wrote:

Launch are over-engineered because satellites are horribly expensive (just getting them to work in such an hostile environement as space after surviving the trauma of a launch is a huge challenge).

Launch isn't a huge issue...a few gravities for a few minutes? Easy. The various shocks and other abuses consumer electronics gets exposed to are worse.

But you need radiation tolerant parts and fault tolerant systems to have any useful operating lifetime, you need parts rated for long exposure to vacuum, you need attitude control systems to get your antenna pointed in the right direction, you need a lot of thermal management design work to make sure it doesn't overheat or freeze, you need something that can reliably deploy itself without any human help, and it's typically all in a very short production run, a small batch if not a single custom spacecraft.

However, consumables like propellant and raw materials for zero gravity labs aren't similarly expensive. The cost of propellant in orbit is almost entirely launch costs. Such low costs would allow reusable orbital spacecraft such as tugs and robotic servicing vehicles. It would be more practical to put up a bus supplying power, attitude control, stationkeeping, etc, and sell slots on it for packages to be installed after the bus is already in orbit. Obsolete spacecraft and components could be deorbited or placed in orbital scrap piles for later recycling. You might just launch standardized modular power system and structure components and do final spacecraft assembly on the spot, in orbit...it's easier to pack things up for safe shipping if they don't have to unpack themselves on arrival.

Why a spaceplane? You're really asking how low launch costs would change things...that doesn't depend on how those low launch costs are achieved, and space planes are one of the least likely options. Hauling an aircraft into orbit and back is not a viable way of reducing costs to orbit.

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

Why a spaceplane? You're really asking how low launch costs would change things...that doesn't depend on how those low launch costs are achieved, and space planes are one of the least likely options. Hauling an aircraft into orbit and back is not a viable way of reducing costs to orbit.

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

Why a spaceplane? You're really asking how low launch costs would change things...that doesn't depend on how those low launch costs are achieved, and space planes are one of the least likely options. Hauling an aircraft into orbit and back is not a viable way of reducing costs to orbit.

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

How do you get the airframe into orbit?

That's when your rocket kicks in.

You've just saved a first stage. You'll notice one thing about first stages in all rocketry. They're fucking huge, massively expensive, and don't make it out of the atmosphere. The Saturn V first stage, for example, cut out at 42 miles up. That's about half way to space.

That's the attraction of air-launching your rockets, there's all that mass that doesn't need to be carried and all that air that doesn't need to be shoved out of the way. We've also got reusable aircraft pretty well nailed.

LEO isn't long term stable - there is still atmospheric drag and stuff falls out those orbits in a few decades at lower end of what is called LEO (80-300km - which is where the cheapest stuff will be put since the cost is lowest).

80 km is still well in the atmosphere, that "orbit" is one that intercepts the Earth. 200 km gets you a few hours, maybe you could get 2-3 revs. 250 km might get you 2-3 weeks. You might get month(s) at 300 km. Just because it would be cheap to put a satellite there doesn't mean a lot of stuff would be put there, it's not an exercise in orbiting objects, you want them to actually DO something, and that low of orbits are not that useful. The higher you go, the less likely you are to be randomly dropping on cities - conjunctions with other objects and the subsequent debris cloud, that's the bigger problem.

Besides, if a sudden surge of launches started happening, then you force all launch providers/satellite manufacturers to file de-orbit planning, so when end-of-life occurs, there are systems in place to drop it in the drink in a controlled fashion.

Hat Monster wrote:

PsionEdge wrote:

Hat Monster wrote:

Christopher James Huff wrote:

Why a spaceplane? You're really asking how low launch costs would change things...that doesn't depend on how those low launch costs are achieved, and space planes are one of the least likely options. Hauling an aircraft into orbit and back is not a viable way of reducing costs to orbit.

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

How do you get the airframe into orbit?

That's when your rocket kicks in.

You've just saved a first stage. You'll notice one thing about first stages in all rocketry. They're fucking huge, massively expensive, and don't make it out of the atmosphere. The Saturn V first stage, for example, cut out at 42 miles up. That's about half way to space.

That's the attraction of air-launching your rockets, there's all that mass that doesn't need to be carried and all that air that doesn't need to be shoved out of the way. We've also got reusable aircraft pretty well nailed.

It's not like air-launching solves that problem. 40K feet, which would be reasonably high altitude for an aircraft hauling a launch vehicle, is only 12 km (compared to your Saturn V example of 68 km). One advantage to launching there is 10-12 km is typically where most launch vehicles experience MaxQ - since the initial velocity at air-launch would be relatively low, the vehicle could be less structurally robust because the aero loads are going to start very small and only decay from there, but that's not going to radically change your launch vehicle. Taurus does it, but those are 500 kg payloads. At least an order of magnitude heavier payload, the vehicle is going to get much bigger and heavier, meaning there aren't that many aircraft in the world fit to carry the thing.

Why a spaceplane? You're really asking how low launch costs would change things...that doesn't depend on how those low launch costs are achieved, and space planes are one of the least likely options. Hauling an aircraft into orbit and back is not a viable way of reducing costs to orbit.

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

How do you get the airframe into orbit?

That's when your rocket kicks in.

You've just saved a first stage. You'll notice one thing about first stages in all rocketry. They're fucking huge, massively expensive, and don't make it out of the atmosphere. The Saturn V first stage, for example, cut out at 42 miles up. That's about half way to space.

That's the attraction of air-launching your rockets, there's all that mass that doesn't need to be carried and all that air that doesn't need to be shoved out of the way. We've also got reusable aircraft pretty well nailed.

We already have launch systems that deploy from aircraft like Orbital's Pegasus. It doesn't seem to have revolutionized much of anything.

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

No it isn't. A first stage weighs nothing after staging, which happens at a fraction of the way to orbit. A spaceplane's airframe, engines, etc masses quite a bit more than nothing.

Hat Monster wrote:

You've just saved a first stage. You'll notice one thing about first stages in all rocketry. They're fucking huge, massively expensive, and don't make it out of the atmosphere. The Saturn V first stage, for example, cut out at 42 miles up. That's about half way to space.

That's the attraction of air-launching your rockets, there's all that mass that doesn't need to be carried and all that air that doesn't need to be shoved out of the way. We've also got reusable aircraft pretty well nailed.

Air launch is quite different from a spaceplane...it's less of a burden to the launch vehicle, as the aircraft is simply an airborne launch platform. However, the aircraft still offers negligible assistance in actually reaching orbit, so your first stage needs to be nearly as large as it would be launching from the ground, and its size is now severely limited by the aircraft. On top of which, you have all the complexities of putting your launch platform aboard an aircraft. Air launch systems are tiny and expensive...Pegasus costs even more per kg to orbit than the Shuttle did.

It's not like air-launching solves that problem. 40K feet, which would be reasonably high altitude for an aircraft hauling a launch vehicle, is only 12 km (compared to your Saturn V example of 68 km). One advantage to launching there is 10-12 km is typically where most launch vehicles experience MaxQ - since the initial velocity at air-launch would be relatively low, the vehicle could be less structurally robust because the aero loads are going to start very small and only decay from there, but that's not going to radically change your launch vehicle. Taurus does it, but those are 500 kg payloads. At least an order of magnitude heavier payload, the vehicle is going to get much bigger and heavier, meaning there aren't that many aircraft in the world fit to carry the thing.

The post-launch aerodynamic loads will be lower, but prior to launch your rocket's fully fueled, at maximum mass, and hanging horizontally from a flying, maneuvering aircraft via a couple attachment points. A system for air launch requires structure to resist flexing forces that vertical launch systems aren't exposed to. The potential for rocket parts raining out of the sky from a flight path out of an airport may also encourage some extra structural margin.

In exchange, you get a reduction in gravity losses because the airspeed doesn't have to be kept down, and because the rocket's slightly closer to the point where it can pitch over and start accelerating to orbital velocity. This is largely of significance to small rockets with lots of thrust and particularly poor specific impulse, like the solids that Orbital has mainly used. (Their latest rocket, the Antares, is their first foray into liquid first stages.)

Oh, and you're thinking of Pegasus. Pegasus launches from an aircraft and gets 443 kg to orbit. Taurus is the ground launched version, essentially a Pegasus with a first stage that gets it up to much higher altitude and velocity than any aircraft could achieve before staging, and gets 1320 kg to orbit. If it were instead to just match the capabilities of the air-launched Pegasus, it could do so with a much smaller first stage, making it barely larger than a Pegasus, just not requiring a carrier aircraft.

For a larger scale air-launch system, look at Stratolaunch. They plan on around 6000 kg, comparable with the Antares and about half that of the Falcon 9. To air-launch their rocket, they're planning to build a customized aircraft, larger by wingspan than any aircraft ever flown and massing ~500000 kg at launch. (Exact mass numbers are a bit stale, being based on a scaled-down Falcon 9 approach that has been abandoned due to the extensive structural changes that would be required.)

Again, that's for ~6000 kg, around half the payload of a Falcon 9 v1.1. Consider what they'd need to match the 53000 kg payload of the Falcon Heavy.

at a cost of around that of a 747 per unit, and a $500 cost per lb to orbit change things?

What target orbit are we talking about here? 300 km low (sub 30-45 degree) inclination? ~800km Sun-Synchronous? The answer would have a remarkable influence on just how much such a craft would change things. The former would certainly be an attractive proposition for a lot of emerging space nations that would probably like to have their own access-to-space capability, and would probably stitch up the market on for-pay group launches of small satellites. $500/lb (~1000/kg) to a Sun-Synchronous orbit in the 700-800km range would provide an operational flexibility that would likely outright kill a lot of current launch providers, and relegate the remaining few to military launch providers and the heavy-lift/GEO niche.

I admit to being a couple of years out of date on reading market trends for the satellite industry, but if the pattern's holding, a 5-8 ton (presumably SSTO) launcher would be overkill for a lot of the emerging markets - there's a huge amount of working being done on small (<200kg) satellites for LEO. They're relatively cheap, are attractive to those looking at developing a standardized "plug and launch" bus, are about the size a lot of "responsive space" proposals are (or were) looking at, and within the reach of a great many private firms and/or universities with good funding.

I think the more exciting opportunity such a low-cost launcher would provide is on-orbit servicing, which at present remains just as, or more, expensive as launching a replacement satellite, even though some modern GEO telecom satellites facing retirement are doing so because they're running low on fuel, and have to keep within budget to push into a graveyard orbit. Low cost servicing missions could do a lot toward fixing that. Heck, low-cost servicing satellites could be used to pull objects out of orbit, and push them into a semi-controlled burn-up over the ocean. (This would also keep a bunch of international lawyers gainfully employed for a good decade, probably. If I recall correctly, Russia once classified the Space Shuttle as a weapon because it could capture satellites. Launching things whose sole purpose is to catch other satellites and de-orbit them would be a sticky issue.)

Hauling an airframe up there is less mass than hauling a first stage full of oxidiser.

No it isn't. A first stage weighs nothing after staging, which happens at a fraction of the way to orbit. A spaceplane's airframe, engines, etc masses quite a bit more than nothing.

I would have thought that if you wanted to push the limits of what a first stage could do, it would be more productive to combine modern high performance engines with a super lightweight balloon tank design in a kind of modern reinterpretation of the original Atlas missile. Surely that would deliver useful payload gains without the incredible cost and complexity of a reusable spaceplane even if balloon tanks are problematic in some ways.

I would have thought that if you wanted to push the limits of what a first stage could do, it would be more productive to combine modern high performance engines with a super lightweight balloon tank design in a kind of modern reinterpretation of the original Atlas missile. Surely that would deliver useful payload gains without the incredible cost and complexity of a reusable spaceplane even if balloon tanks are problematic in some ways.

The Falcon 9 actually has a better mass ratio than the balloon-tank Atlas did while not being such a pain to deal with. However, the first stage doesn't go anywhere near orbit, so weight reductions on the first stage mean less while simultaneously being more costly due to its size. A kg saved on the second stage is a kg more payload to orbit, but the gains of saving a kg on the first stage are a kg of payload + second stage + propellant delivered to the stage separation point, only a fraction of which goes to payload to orbit.

Rather than trying to maximize payload by shaving mass from the first stage, you're better off trying to reduce costs of manufacturing those larger tanks and multiple engines, or recovering and reusing them, even if it costs you some payload. SpaceX has made a lot of progress on the first (and on reducing operational costs, another major factor), and is working on recovering and reusing as much as is economical to do...a rather more reasonable approach than betting everything on full reuse from the very start.

If someone could pull together the energy storage media, manufacturing reliability and tolerances, systems automation, and associated technological wonders required to get the cost of putting a pound of cargo into orbit down to $500, your first concern shouldn't be what will have changed in regards to space. That degree of technological advancement would mean fundamental evolutionary-if-not-revolutionary alterations to the human condition.

Cheap, portable, reliable, safe, high-density energy storage alone would change some basic facets of western civilization, to say nothing of less developed nations.